Contents

History

According to the firm's website, "Porter Novelli International was created in 1996 by two international public relations leaders, Bob Druckenmiller and Peter Hehir, who had a vision of the first, true multinational, multicultural public relations firm capable of delivering best-in-class service to clients in all major world markets." [1]

Druckenmiller "had co-founded Porter Novelli in the U.S. in the 1970s," while Hehir "had founded Countrywide Communications Group in the United Kingdom in the 1970s." The two joined forces "in the late 1980s to offer global service to both companies' major clients," the website states. [2]

In a listing on its website of PR companies with a crisis management capability, the American Meat Institute described Porter Novelli's U.S. expertise as including "product recalls, tampering, environmental and natural disasters, regulatory and legislative issues, labor and factory incidents as well attacks [sic] from advocacy groups at the national as well as the local level." [3]

"Porter Novelli is a national, full-service communications firm of over 500 professionals with offices in Washington, New York, Chicago, Boston, Atlanta, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Phoenix and Miami. Porter Novelli is the flagship agency of Porter Novelli International, with offices in 81 cities and 40 countries," the AMI website continued. [4]

Porter Novelli and Climate Change

Porter Novelli helped promote the U.S. Business Roundtable's "Climate RESOLVE" program, O'Dwyer's PR Daily reports. Climate RESOLVE was created to encourage companies to voluntarily reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, responding to George W. Bush's call for a voluntary 18 percent reduction of emissions by 2012 and attempting to undermine an international treaty on GHG.

The Climate RESOLVE campaign kicked off on September 23, 2004 with ads in the Washington Post and Roll Call to be followed by "one-pagers" for "Congressional aides, environmental officials and reporters to keep them abreast of efforts to control greenhouse gas."

Climate RESOLVE is also hosting a two-day "GHG Management Workshop," featuring a talk by White House Council on Environmental Quality chair James L. Connaughton. The Business Roundtable says 70 percent of its members have signed up for Climate RESOLVE. "They are eager to avoid the mandated cuts that are going into effect in much of the world under the Kyoto Protocol, the pending international treaty of global warming," O'Dwyer's writes. [6]

U.S. Government PR Contracts

According to the U.S. House Committee on Government Reform Minority Office, Porter-Novelli received the following amounts per year, for federal PR contracts: [7]

The Food Guide Pyramid

Porter Novelli "invented the first pyramid in the late 1980's," but the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) "delayed its release until 1992," due to complaints from meat and milk producers that "their products were placed in such a way that people might be discouraged from consuming them." [8]

With the release of new USDA federal dietary guidelines in early 2005, Porter Novelli won a government contract worth nearly $2.5 million to design an updated version of the food guide pyramid - an informational graphic that may or may not be a pyramid. Noting that government food guidelines "can be powerful marketing tools for the food industry," affecting sales as well as "federal food programs costing $46 billion a year, including food stamps and meals for schoolchildren," some questioned the propriety of awarding the contract to a firm whose clients include McDonald's and the Snack Food Association. "You have a company on one hand pushing McDonald's or almonds or whatever, and on the other providing objective advice on government nutrition programs," said Center for Science in the Public Interest director Michael F. Jacobson. "It really does pose a conflict of interest." [9]

Porter Novelli executives "say a fire wall dividing the government effort from the corporate interests, and the various corporate interests from one another, is maintained by confidentiality agreements, strict separation of the teams working on various campaigns and a number of protocols and computer safeguards on the flow of information." Moreover, stated William D. Novelli, the firm's mix of private and government clients creates "synergy. It benefits both clients. Consumers are not purists. They are not monolithic." [10]